Apparently Scottish refs and officials changed their mind following pressure from SF and declared the pitch as impracticable for rugby. SF refused to play the match tomorrow on Cluj Arena. Timisoara may lose this match without actually playing it.

amz wrote:Apparently Scottish refs and officials changed their mind following pressure from SF and declared the pitch as impracticable for rugby. SF refused to play the match tomorrow on Cluj Arena. Timisoara may lose this match without actually playing it.

It's certainly better weather at Timisoara than in Siberia..

Will transfer the match to another time, do not worry.Connacht could refuse to play at - 20 ° C

temperature at the pitch level was 2 Celsius while the regulations says should be 3 Celsius.

Does those regulations really exist? Have anybody seen them in print?

Or is it another MYTH of 'blazer party'?... like *150km rule from airport* so aptly used by GEO as an excuse not to travel to Cluj?

@

Frankly I don't know, I didn't read the competition's manual/regulations, that's what I said at the beginning of the phrase "apparently" (maybe I should have used "allegedly"). I was just posting the rumors from Timisoara.

I also read this story about it only being 2 degrees and regulation saying it has to be 3 but I can't find out where. If this is true then SF are a disgrace. I bet EPCR award SF a 3 try win but I really hope they get nothing. I hope Quins stuff them in the next round although that is unlikely the way Quins have been playing.

Connacht playing in Enisey in -20 conditions, The Treviso Gloucester game getting cancelled and the Treviso fans giving gloucester fans lifts to the new location - this is what rugby is about. Friendship and respect. Not refusing to play because it is a bit cold.

It says 150 from city with International Airport and Cluj-Napoca have one with regular (if not daily) flights to Munich or Frankfurth.

Horsehead, I think SF benefited from the discussion between club and local authorities before the match and tried to get a win without playing. How the heck the field was deemed OK at 10 AM and unsuitable 3 hours later beats me, it wasn't even so cold Saturday. Only 5 French players got out at warm up and they refused to have the captain's run on artificial training field. Although the conditions in Romania might not be the best, I am sure aren't much worse than in other European places.

amz wrote:Remind me one two weeks before the match, some of guys from our rugby club will certainly go out for a drink after the match (you can also have beers and probably mulled wine at the stadium) so we can join you if you like; however, since is Sunday many won't stay much after midnight. Also if you need some travel advice about Bucharest or generally Romania let me know. Cheers!

We have booked our flights and hotel for the Georgia game, there are 12 of us coming.

There is a rugby podcast in the UK called Eggchasers https://www.acast.com/eggchasers and my brother tweeted them about us going to this match some time ago and now they have confirmed they are going as well and will be doing their podcast from Bucharest that week. They are also encouraging as many people as they can to come to support T2 rugby and because a return flight to Bucharest is cheaper than a ticket to watch England at Twickenham. So there might be quite a few brits at this game

luca tim wrote:Well, looks like it's becoming a habit. This Saturday, against Stade Francais, one of them FezBoys was among the spectators. Too bad there was no game to watch...

And this is a shame why there aren't more T2 clubs getting to play against T1 clubs because the fans certainly want to travel to watch rugby in new locations. And another reason why SF should be lambasted for refusing to play - because of the fans who made the effort to go

I checked the facts described in the article with third parties who were in Timisoara and these are the facts. Pitch was indeed hard but not frozen or snowy as it is shown in one of the pics posted by SF.

Moreover, reading the decision I am curious to see the reasoning behind, mainly two elements:

- I expect the panel to explain what would have been the appropriate steps to be taken since they found that Timisoara did not take all - I also expect them to explain what's the problem with lack of cover; Timisoara consulted the week before the match a specialist in pitches and he said covers won't help against the frost; the problem wasn't the snow but constant extremely low temperatures across the entire country.

Finally, the composition of panel made by Mr. Crerar is laughable. It's a panel sitting in Paris, with a Frenchman in its composition and also a Scot which can also raise suspicions since the ref who took the decision is Scottish. Couldn't they appointed an English, an Irish and a Welsh or Italian?

Right, I'm going to try and move on from the awful decision for SF and talk about other things

Why have Timisoara been so poor in the challenge cup this year? I know it was a very tough pool so I didn't quite expect them to repeat Enisey's heroics but I really thought they would be more competitive than they have been, especially at home. I really expected them to perform better than the Wolves did but this doesn't seem to be the case.

How are they getting on in the Supaliga? And how do you fancy their chances in the qualifying play offs? Do we know if it is going to be against Krasny Yar or Mogliano yet?